


255 - Reader in Law School, Body Positivity & Potential Babies

by storiesaboutvan



Category: Catfish and the Bottlemen (Band)
Genre: F/M, Reader-Insert, body pos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 15:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17389079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesaboutvan/pseuds/storiesaboutvan
Summary: Filling the prompts "van’s girlfriend gets into law school and he is just so proud of her?? like the first thing he tells everyone he meets is that his girlfriend is crazy smart and is gonna be a lawyer. and his parents haven’t met her yet so van tells them that she got into law school and they think that he totally just made the girl up because they never thought he’d end up with a lawyer??" and "what about a funny/emotional panic when reader realized she forgot to take her birth control and starts freaking out because her period is late" and "you have a bad day and you’re really insecure - when he touches your waist you get all squirmy and uncomfortable bc ur insecure about it but he tells you you’re beautiful and loads of fluff to make you feel like ur good enough"





	255 - Reader in Law School, Body Positivity & Potential Babies

"No fucking way," you mumbled under your breath.

There wasn't a sound in the shitty little apartment you and Van lived in. He was always on about buying a nicer place. Owning a home. A cottage with a nice lavender and rose garden out front and a kitchen big enough to have a smoke in, he said. You guessed that Larry would reside in one of the bedrooms, but he was family so it could hardly be a home without him. 

Van said the apartment you were then renting was a death trap. The exposed pipes that burned when the shower was on. The uneven floorboards that were a tripping hazard, even when sober. The weird sense of isolation, the silence, that could drive an extrovert like Van mad. You'd always wondered how it stayed so quiet, despite between wedged between a lower and upper apartment.

You looked around the space. Dirty mugs in the sink. Van's sweaters over chairs and guitars propped up against walls. Your attempt at indoor gardening, dying in every corner of the open plan kitchen/dining/living. You looked at it all, at your life, then back at the letter in your hands. One day, it would all be different. So, so different. Different because Van would surely be a rock star; you were entirely convinced of that. But different too, because of the letter. An acceptance letter.

"No. Fucking. Way."

…

"BABE!" Van yelled, picking you up and spinning you around the room. "WHAT DID I FUCKIN' TELL YOU?! I KNEW IT! YOU'RE DEAD SMART! COURSE IT WAS GONNA BE A YES!"

You squealed and giggled until he put you down and held your face in his hands. He squeezed your cheeks and grinned at the faces he was making you pull. 

"Aw, love. I'm so proud of you. Fuck. You did it, huh? And what a fuckin' month! Good news for once! This has gotta balance it out, yeah?"

"Fuck, that reminds me," you said, pulling away from Van and searching for your antibiotics under a pile of junk mail and future lyrics scribbled on napkins and receipts.

"We gotta go out and celebrate. All the lids are in town. Let's get the entire family together, yeah? I wanna show you off. Babe! So proud," he said again, wrapping his arms around you from behind as you swallowed the medication with a glass of tap water.

"Yeah, alright. I feel good. Haven't had symptoms for like, a week and a bit. Almost finished the course of antibiotics," you answered, twisting around in his arms to look at him. He grinned.

"That's good. Didn't much like you being in pain. Didn't much like not being able to-"

"I know! I know! Urinary tract infections aren't very sexy," you interrupted. Depriving Van was sex was always a mean thing to do. It was an act of love for him and without it, he got more mushy and sappy in his romance.

"Do you know what is, but? You. In a fancy suit. Standing in a courtroom yelling, 'objection!' and making the world go 'round. Fuck! Law school! Babe!"

Van was easily more excited than you. Arguably he was more proud of you than you were of yourself. Maybe it was that you understood all the hard work that was to come, the pain for the gain. Van didn't; he was always blissfully unaware of so much. But, he knew all the sacrifice you'd made. He'd stayed up with you well into the night, watching you read and study. He'd quizzed you and made you tea and did all the things he could. He'd say, "I'm like your roadie, you know?" whenever you would try to send him to bed. He'd argue it was his job to help you, like you did whenever a Catfish thing was going on. "We're a team, Y/N!"

…

"Okay. Okay. Everyone shush," Van said, standing and hitting his beer bottle with a silver lighter. The sound drew attention and everyone at the table looked at him. Strangers in the pub's beer garden did too. You were surprised at the number of people that showed up at such late notice, but people tended to do what Van said. He was magnetic like that. "So, Y/N's got some big, big news-"

But before he could say another word Matilda gasped loudly and said, "You're pregnant!"

"What?!" Larry screeched. Would the baby take his room in the cottage-to-be?

"No! God, no. No. I'm not pregnant," you quickly corrected, shaking your head frantically and grinning at even the thought. God, no.

"No. We ain't there yet. You want to tell them?" Van asked you, looking down. You'd opted to stay in your seat.

"Do you want to?" you asked back, suspecting he would gain more joy from it than you.

Nodding, he smiled then said, "She did it. Got into Law at Cambridge!"

The table erupted into gasps, woos, and clapping. Larry was next to you, and he pulled you into a hug and kissed both cheeks. Bondy called for three cheers for you. Never ever had your face been redder. Van watched everyone praise you, be in awe of you, and puffed with pride. Without a doubt, you were his favourite thing in the whole wide world.

…

"So when you's a proper lawyer," Van said, his speech slurred from the alcohol. Or maybe your hearing was affected by it. Or maybe both. "Can I, like, do anythin', and you can juss bail me out?"

You giggled. Wrapped around Van, the centre of his world, you were goooooooooooooooone. Half the party had left the pub shortly after the second round of drinks and dinner. The other half were scattered around the place playing pool, doing shots, or fighting over jukebox picks. You and Van were, of course, all tangled up together making out like drunk uni students on their very first pub crawl.

"Sureeeee. Tha's how it works," you replied.

"Babe. Can we go? Go home?" Van asked. His forehead was pressed against your chest, and your head was resting on top of his. He was kissing your collarbones periodically and each time his arms wrapped around you, he pulled you down onto him harder.

"What 'bout all your guests?"

"Only invited 'em to tell 'em 'bout how good you are. Fink they know," he said, sitting up and looking at you. "So, home?"

…

"Van! VAN!"

You were laying starfished on your bed, yelling for him. You weren't sure how long you had been yelling for before he appeared in the doorway with a bottle of vodka in one hand.

"Told you to get undressed," he said in a grumpy tone that made you giggle.

Van stumbled over and put the bottle on the bed, then proceeded to unlace your boots and pull them off. The giggle was maintained throughout the entire effortful procedure of Van undressing you and leaving messy, wet kisses across your body. As he kissed your tummy, you rolled away, taking the bottle with you.

Following you onto the bed, Van crawled under the covers and watched you take a shot from the bottle and pull a face. He smirked then took one himself. You snorted when he pulled the exact same face.

"God, I love you," you said, letting your body fall into his. He caught you, holding the open bottle up above your head.

"Babe! Bottle! Gonna make a mess!" he squealed before leaning in to kiss your neck.

"Vodka don't stain," you mumbled. You pulled his arm down, took the bottle, and let it fall out your hand and to the floor. You hoped, by some miracle, it would land on its flat bottom surface. It did not.

With both hands free and his darling girl in his lap, Van took control.

…

A couple of nights later, you and Van were invited to a celebration dinner at Mary and Bernie's. Over a roast, veggies and Yorkshire puddings, their ongoing reaction to the news was similar to Van's in that it was filled with an authentic pride, but it was dissimilar in that it was more subdued and calm. They acknowledged the feat, and as expected, responded with a dig at Van.

"Won't be long before she gives you the boot," Mary said. Van rolled his eyes at her.

"Your cousin's ex went to… one of them schools. One of them fancy ones. Don’t recall which. He was a strapping young lad," Bernie added with a smirk meant to antagonise.

"So smart too. Bet the boys at Cambridge don't walk into glass doors,"

"Ma! That was one time! And it was cleaned too good. I was probably high," Van yelled at her, at them both. "Stop!" He looked over at you for help. You were trying to not laugh by crossing your arms over your chest and chewing your thumb.

"Still remember when he brought you home for the first time, Y/N. Spent the whole dinner tryna' work out what was wrong with ya," Mary said. Van slumped into his chair, annoyed but not at all hurt.

"Bad taste in men must be ya Achilles heel," Bernie concluded. 

"You guys are so mean! He's your only kid!" you laughed. They looked at each other and shrugged. "And besides, I'm not gonna… give him the boot,"

"See? She loves me? Even if I am stupid,"

"You're not stupid, Van. We're just different types of smart," you told him, like you had before. He grinned at you, turned back to his parents and stuck his tongue out.

"Hear that? You lot just sod off with that negativity. She's smart and she loves me."

Van went on to update his parents about how the band was doing and all the future plans. It was then you could see it. Van was as proud of you as his parents were of him. It was a heavy realisation that made you want to cry and laugh at the same time.

…

It was a week after the letter arrived that the glow of it all wore off. There wasn't anything you could buy, plan, or study for a while yet, so you were cursed to walk the rooms of your silent apartment without aim. When you began to feel nauseous in the mornings and generally a bit achy and out of it, you put it down to antibiotic side effects and a generally rough month for your body. Van noticed though, rolling over in bed and putting his hand on your forehead.

"Feelin' alright?" he asked with a look of concern on his face that shouldn't have been so adorable.

You made a moaning sound and shrugged. "Been better,"

"Just a bit run down, hey?"

"That's what I figured. They did tell me to take a probiotic with the anti. Thought it was a trick to make me spend more money," you replied.

Van snorted and nodded. Van always took the advice of medical professionals as gospel. You, however, were more sceptical of any source of so-called ultimate truths. That's probably why you ended up in law.

"Probably don't wanna hear this then, but the guys are comin' round in a bit. Got a few songs to run by them. We can go to Blake's instead or somthin'?"

"Nah, it's alright," you said with a shake of the head. "I'm not headachy or anything. I'll just be bad company,"

"Impossible!" Van said with a grin, pulling you into a bouncy, sunshiny hug that didn't at all match your mood. You loved him for it.

Later, once you said your hellos to the guys and endured another round of Van bragging about your special and smart you were for getting into law school, you disappeared into the spare room to sort through some boxes of junk. You'd been meaning to do it for a while but never really found the time. That was basically code for - you procrastinated over the boxes for months.

In one, you found your office and craft supplies. The box of washi tape brought you joy and you made a promise to use it more. Three different tape dispensers. Glitter glue that hadn't been used in years. Staples but no stapler. And your diary. Your diary that had not been in the box for months. You had used it regularly up until a few weeks ago. It had gone missing and as you held it in your hands, you wondered how the fuck it ended up discarded with cat shaped paperclips and an excessive amount of safety pins.

Presumably, when you threw one hell of a tantrum about "stuff" being "everywhere" and stormed out the door, Van put the "stuff" in the spare room. When you had returned everything was clean and tidy. You hadn't since your diary since but hadn't pieced together any of that. Maybe law wasn't your thing…

You flipped through the pages and backfilled in events and dates. Old pages were useless now, but you felt compelled to have it neat and tidy and complete. History informs the present and future. For example, you wrote in the date of last month's period. You could remember it because it coincided with a friend's birthday and it was a horrible day. As you counted out the days between then and now, you felt your skin go cold and your stomach flip. No.

Nah.

Nope.

No way.

You were never late. Ever. And you were on the pill!

The antibiotics though…

You stood up and quickly went to freak out and vent to Van, because that is what you always did when you had too many feelings. As you got to the door, you could hear the laughter and voices from the lounge. Of course. So, you stood there awkwardly stuck, nowhere to go, nobody to tell, not really sure what you would say.

A deep breath in and out and you said to yourself, just a couple of days.

Just a couple of days didn't mean much. You'd wait a few more before panicking. Or at least, you'd wait a few more before admitting you were panicking.

…

"I'm panicking!" you yelled through the bathroom door when Van asked what you were doing.

"Why?" he asked back in a normal voice, because the density of the door was not that of one that required a yell.

Swinging the door open dramatically, you looked at Van. He tried to not smile at your face, but he read your terror as cute.

"I'm pregnant," you said.

Van snorted. "Nah. What?"

"My period is five days late. It's never late,"

"So? That's normal and you've been sick. Calm yourself, love," he tried to placate you, stepping closer and putting his hands on your shoulders.

"It's not normal for me! Antibiotics fuck with the pill, Van. What the fuck are we going to do?"

He made a strange snorting sound and pulled you into a hug, stepping side to side. "Raise our kid with lots of love. Think 'bout how smart they'll be with you as a mum!"

"Van!" you yelled, pulling yourself out of a hug and staring at him with a mortified expression. "We can't have a fucking baby!"

"Okay, yeah. I know. It ain't the plan. But no use worrying till we know. Let's go down to the store and get a test, okay? Figure it out proper."

You thought for a moment, trying to decide what you wanted to do. When you couldn't even create a simple thought, you burst into tears. Van bundled you back up in his arms and kept kissing your head.

"I'm pregnant!" you sobbed. "I'm all puffy and bloated! My feet hurt! I'm all moody! What am I gonna do?!"

"Baby. Shhh. Look. First off, it's not 'I', 'kay? It's us. What are we gonna do. You're never gonna be alone. Promise. And second, we don’t know if you are pregnant. Think we need to take a breath, yeah?"

"I'm b-b-bloated," you stuttered out in the saddest whisper Van had ever heard.

"Okay. Well. How about you have a shower and get into bed and try to breathe, and I'll go to the store? How's that sound?"

You nodded and simply walked back into the bathroom. Van paused and waited for you to give him further instruction, but when you stripped and got into the shower silently, he nodded and left.

The shower could only keep you calm for so long. Naked, you were reminded of your strangely swelling tummy that you definitely felt like wasn't there a couple of weeks ago. You were reminded that you'd probably never be able to shower in peace again. Children demand so much attention. More than Van, even, and that was a lot.

Quickly, you towelled off and got into your warmest, most comforting pyjamas. That is when your phone rang. You picked up without saying anything.

"Babe, I know you're freaking out and I'm meant to be the strong one, but now I'm freaking out 'cause there are all these different types?! What should I be looking for?" Van asked.

After a three-second pause, you started to sniffle again. "I don't know! How should I know?! I've-"

"Okay. I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll ask someone. Just thought you might have a preference or-"

"A preference?! It's not like I need to test for pregnancy every other week, Van!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry. I've got it sorted, love. Promise. I'm good. I'm sorry. I love you. I'm gonna go now. I love you! Bye!" and he quickly hung up after realising the error he had made.

You sobbed into a pillow for a couple more minutes before calming down and switching the television on.

…

"Oh," you said meekly as the lines on the third test said the same thing.

"Can we stop now?" Van asked. "I mean, I don't mind watching you piss on sticks, but I'm pretty sure ya not pregnant."

You looked up at him. He was sitting on the bathroom vanity. "What do you mean you don't mind watching me pee?"

"What?"

"Are you into this?"

Van's face broke out into a grin. "She's got her sense of humour back!" he cheered, sliding from the vanity and hugging you. "And no. Watersports ain't my thing,"

"How do you even know its name?" you asked, watching Van pick up the small bathroom bin and throw all the boxes and sticks into it. He shrugged, then washed his hands.

"You're book smart. I'm street smart," he answered.

After washing your hands, you followed him through the apartment to the bedroom.

"I don't know if knowing what ‘watersports’ means is street smart… Street smart is like… knowing how to buy drugs and not get stabbed," you said, climbing under the covers and settling in.

"Yeah, know that too.”

You rolled your eyes at him.

After only a couple of minutes of television, Van sighed. You looked over at him and waited. He smiled before saying, "When we do want a kid, this will all be excitin'. The unsure and the testing and everything. The whole lot,"

"Yeah. Not now though. Would have been good to have an excuse for this bloating though," you replied, poking your belly.

Van wriggled over and pulled you close to him. When his hands went to your stomach you pushed him away and made a sound of discontent.

"What?" he asked.

"Street smart but not girl smart," you mumbled. Van frowned, hurt. "I thought it was from being sick or being fucking pregnant or something, but this is just me,"

"Not just you. You. You're beautiful. All of you. You know I think that, yeah?"

You did. You knew there wasn't one part of you that Van wouldn't die to touch. Nodding, you watched him smirk just a little.

"But I don't love all of me,"

"I don't know how to fix that, love. Wish I could. When I figure out how, I'll do it, but 'till then I'll just keep lovin' ya and make sure I love you big enough for the both of us, yeah? 'Cause I'd do anythin' for you. I'd move across the country so you could go to law school and become the genius you were born to be. I'd run all the way to the store to buy ten pregnancy tests even if I thought we didn't need 'em. I'd tell you over and over how pretty and beautiful you are. One day you'll believe it,"

"Maybe," you replied with a shrug. The apples of your cheeks were burning red from the pure adoration coming from Van. His love was so true that it burned.

"And besides! I love your tummy, babe. Good for ticklin'!"

Van's fingers were dragging along the skin of your stomach and sides before you had a chance to move from his grip. You screamed hysterical, painful laughter and begged him to stop. But, as he sat on top of your thighs and watched your hands curl with defeat, eyes close with happiness, and tummy jiggle from the tickling, he was in heaven.

"Please! Please!"

"Please?! That all you got! Ain't lawyers meant to be good at convincing people?! Come on, love. You can do better!" Van teased.

"Rrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy-an!" you squealed. Van laughed and stopped, letting you sit up on your knees like he was.

"What?" he asked dramatically enough that it sounded like 'wot.'

"Nothing."

He raised an eyebrow, so you smiled sweetly. 

He shook his head, so you licked your lips.

"I love you," Van said, his expression of mischievous fun turning into one of calm warmth.

"I love you too."


End file.
